


Soulmate Snippets

by foobar137



Category: Historical Fiction
Genre: Aromantic coping in a world with soulmates, Aromanticism, Asexuality, Gen, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Soulmate marks on arms, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Female Character, Undefined timeframe, Unspecified gender POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-03-19 15:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foobar137/pseuds/foobar137
Summary: A series of short works set in a world where people are born with their soulmate's name on their arm.  We dive into what happens when people with less-typical sexualities are born into this world.Chapter 1: AroAceChapter 2: Trans woman





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This jumped into my head this morning, and pretty much forced me to write it. Many thanks to flukasaurgirl on tumblr for giving it a once-over. Assume any faults are mine and not theirs.

"Oh, that's too bad." Everybody says that when they ask who your soulmate is, and you tell them. You don't have one. Your arm is blank, and has been since you were born.

You're used to it now. You're only eight, and everyone gives you these pitying looks. You didn't understand it for a while, but now you know. Your older brother told you.

You're going to die early. So early you never get to meet your soulmate, whoever it might have been.

It's an awful thing to learn when you're eight.

The kids at school look at you like you're a freak. Two thirds of them already know their soulmates, and while they aren't quite sure what it really means yet, they know they're going to spend the rest of their lives with this person. The rest of them have images of what their soulmate will be like, just based on a stupid name on their arm.

And you don't have anyone like that.

You read a lot. Books don't have soulmates either.

* * *

 

You're fifteen now. You still don't have a name on your arm. Sometimes you want to take a sharpie and write one on, just to feel what it might be like.

But there isn't any name you want to write there.

Your classmates are pairing up now. The kids who know their soulmates have been dating for a while. The kids who don't are starting to ask each other out - not forever, but just for practice. Just so they'll know how to deal with their soulmate when they meet.

Sometimes one of them asks you on a date. You politely decline. Usually they take it well.

Sometimes they get upset. Ask if you're too good for them. Tell you you should be glad for the attention. Tell you that your attitude is why you'll die early.

You're not sure you want a soulmate anyway. You have friends, but...romance is just uninteresting to you. Sex isn't particularly interesting either. You're not really sure what the appeal is.

You write yourself stories instead. They suck, and you don't show them to anyone. But they're yours. And when you're gone, they'll be all that's left of you.

* * *

 

You're twenty-two years old. Your friends are marrying their soulmates now. You've been to half a dozen weddings in the past year. You sit there, watching, and wonder if there's something wrong with you. You should want this. Everybody tells you you should want this. And...you just don't.

You're focusing on your career right now, anyway. You've been writing since you were a teen, but now people are paying you for it. You started small - freelance columns for various magazines, occasional short stories. Now you're being offered a regular column, with a regular salary. Your brother and his husband are happy for you.

Your parents make pleased noises at you, but they still worry. You can tell. There's the continuous fear that the other shoe will drop soon, that the next phone call won't be from you talking about your column. It'll be from the police, asking them if they're your next of kin.

At night, you write. These aren't the columns. These are bigger. These are your stories.

You try many genres to find what feels right. Mystery wasn't you - too hard to make it fair. Fantasy felt like cheating, when magic could fix so many things. Romance...yeah, no. Science fiction is close, but not really right.

Historical fiction, though...that works for you. You write tales of emperors and generals, of peasants and merchants, of farmers and explorers and priests and bandits.

You write like you're running out of time, because you know you are. The blank space on your arm says so. You only have so long to make something great, something that will outlive you.

You have to hurry.

* * *

 

You're thirty years old now, and people are talking about you. You're not sure how that makes you feel.

Your historical fiction set among the Sao people of central Africa has hit it big. You've woven a tapestry from the threads of history and your own imagination, and for whatever reason, it's caught on. People are talking about your books. People are talking about you.

When they talk about you, they always mention that blank space on your arm. Your fans - amazingly enough, there are some - beg you to write faster. Most of them don't say it's because they know you won't be around much longer.

But you wonder.

Maybe you don't have a soulmate, not because you're going to die, but because you just aren't interested in having one. You've seen the word 'asexual' mentioned, and 'aromantic', and they clicked inside of you. There have been other people like you. There are other people like you.

You don't use those words, though. They aren't words people like to hear. They don't fit the model everyone has built. People go out, they find their soulmate, they live happily together until one of them dies, and usually the other dies of a broken heart.

You give a weak smile at people's pity about being alone. You're not alone. You have a dog, and a cat, and a couple friends you share a house with. You don't mind them being soulmates, and they don't mind you not. To each their own.

* * *

 

You're fifty years old, and your parents have just died. Your brother and his husband still lived near them, and organized the funeral. But you had to give a eulogy. Certainly their famous author child was required to do that.

So you did. You talked about how your parents met in kindergarten, and were told they were soulmates. How they hated each other for years, hated being forced together, and went to different colleges to get away from each other. How they met again on a summer break, and then they realized what a soulmate meant. How they were inseparable for the rest of their lives.

You could recite the story from memory. You heard it enough times as a child. You put your own spin on it, of course. You're a storyteller, you could never leave it alone.

You finished with their ending. How your father made a mistake. He forgot to open the barn doors while he was working on the tractor, and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. How your mother knew as soon as it happened, walked into the barn, and closed the door behind herself. She didn't want to live without him.

And now you're an orphan. But you're not alone.

You have two cats now, but no dog. You share a house with a couple friends and their daughter. You love their daughter as if she were your own, and her parents are thrilled to have another adult around to help out. When she was a baby, you could watch her to give them a break. Now that the girl is entering the teenage years, you can be the confidante she needs who isn't a parent.

She tells you she isn't sure about the boy whose name is on her arm. He's a bit of a jerk. You tell her that boys can be like that sometimes, and she doesn't have to put up with it, soulmate or not. You tell her about your parents, and how it took until they were twenty to fall in love. You tell her about other friends, other acquaintances, total strangers whose stories you've read. People who have realized that, no matter how much they loved their soulmate, it wasn't a healthy place for them to be.

She asks about your arm, and you tell her. You tell her you're aromantic and asexual, and what that means. She asks if you feel like you're missing anything.

You tell her you don't. You have your friends, and your brother and brother-in-law. You have fans around the world clamoring for your next book. You have two cats.

You have her parents. You have her. It's enough. It's all you want.

* * *

 

You're eighty-two years old now, and you don't have long left.

Your brother passed on a few years ago, after his husband died in a car crash. He wasted away, unable to eat.

Your lungs are killing you now. Lung cancer spreads quickly, and yours has gone to many parts of your body. The chemotherapy came too late, and would only kill you faster than the cancer can.

You've asked them to take away the pain, but stop the chemo.

Your niece is there, with her husband and their young sons. She's not really your niece, but you lived with her parents until they passed on. You're more than a friend but not really a relative, and now you're the closest thing she has left to a parent. "It's okay," you tell her. "I had a good life."

"I know," she says, tears in her eyes. "I just...I'm going to miss you so much."

You squeeze her hand, softly. You don't have much strength left.

One of her sons has no name on his arm. He looks at yours, bare on the hospice bed. "Did you do okay, not having a soulmate?" he asks softly.

You laugh, but it turns into a cough. After you catch your breath again, you say, "I did just fine. You know why?"

He shakes his head, his eyes wide.

"I was my own soulmate."


	2. Transwoman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: homophobic bullying.

Charlie dabbed at the bloody cuts on his face with the damp cloth. A couple of homophobic older kids had caught him on the way home, and decided to show him what they thought of guys with male names on their arms.

He winced at the sting as he washed the dirt out from where they’d forced his face along the sidewalk.Once again, he cursed himself for not keeping the name a secret.Kids always asked who each other’s soul mate was.He’d told somebody, back in elementary school, before he realized what it meant that David was a male name.Now he was in ninth grade, and everybody knew.Usually it meant subtle whispers - or shouts - of “fag” and social shunning, but sometimes somebody decided to make it physical.

It wasn’t fair.He didn’t want to be gay.It wasn’t his choice.He didn’t even want to be a boy.He’d much rather be a girl.He wished there was a way he could be.

* * *

“I can’t guarantee what will happen with your soul mate,” the doctor said.

Charlotte shrugged.She had been publicly living as a woman for a year now, and it was time to start the medical transition.Hopefully David - whoever he was - would understand.

“I need this, Doc.If my soul mate can’t handle the real me, they aren’t really my soul mate.”

The doctor nodded, and started scribbling.“Okay.Here’s your prescription.”

* * *

Charlotte checked her makeup in the mirror.She looked good.

Her friend Joanie shook her head.“You look great, girl.Let’s go.”

Charlotte laughed.“Thanks.”She picked up her purse and left the bathroom, following Joanie.

“Two guys over by the bar.Interested?” Joanie whispered.

Charlotte looked over there.One of them was kinda cute.Looked a little too much like one of the guys who used to beat her up in high school, though.The other one…

Whoa.That was exactly what she was looking for.

“Um.Wow.Guy on the right’s mine.”

Joanie chuckled.“I’ll come along.Guy on the left’s cute.”

Charlotte wasn’t paying attention.She was focused on the guy on the right.His face was perfect, gorgeous brown skin with piercing eyes that were almost black.Close-cropped black hair, and a thin mustache.

He looked at her, and froze.She was almost to him now, and his jaw dropped. His hand brushed his arm almost reflexively, as if he were trying to keep from baring it right now.“You…” he said.“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Charlotte, would it?”

Relief washed over her, the release of a tension that she’d been holding ever since she’d realized she was trans.“It is.You’re David?”

He nodded, a stupid grin on his face that she knew matched her own.

* * *

They’d found a little alcove, and were swapping stories.While she’d been relieved that the name on his arm wasn’t her deadname, Charlotte was still worrying about what Dave would say when he found out…

“So.Charlotte?Never Charlie?”Dave was grinning as he said it, but her heart sank.

“No.Never.Um.I…I need to tell you something.”She was holding back tears only by a hair’s breadth now.She’d met Dave, and everything clicked, and now…

“I’m all ears,” he said, with a slight frown of concern.

“I’m not Charlie, because…I used to be.Charles.I was…I am…I…”She paused, staring at the table, and took a deep breath.“I’m trans.”

The moment stretched, and she looked up at him.He was smiling still, but he looked confused.

“Okay,” he said.“You’re trans.I…I’m surprised, certainly.But…”He paused for a moment, then nodded, as if to himself.“I look at you, and I see a gorgeous woman.And as soon as I saw you, I knew you were the right one for me.”He squeezed her hand, gently.“We’ve got a lot to learn about each other.This is part of it.”

“I’m…”

He leaned over and kissed her, then sat back and looked into her eyes.His eyes were dark, almost mirrors, but instead of seeing herself, she saw herself as he saw her.It was a much better view than any other mirror had ever given her.

“I may not understand what I’m getting into, Charlotte,” he said, “but I know I can get through it if I go with you.”


End file.
